Aashish Sehrawat
If you thought Apple laptops were pricey, wait until you see how much their manuals cost.
An Apple II manual signed by the company’s late co-founder Steve Jobs sold for $787,484 at RR Auction in Boston on Thursday.
The 196-page manual for the computer is engraved and signed opposite the Table of Contents:
“Julian, you are the first generation to have grown up with computers. Make a difference in the world! Jobs, Steven, 1980.”
Mike Markkula, an early Apple investor and the company’s second CEO, has also signed it.
RR Auction claimed in a statement announcing the transaction that the manual was signed while Jobs and Markkula were in the United Kingdom promoting Apple. Julian Brewer, the son of an entrepreneur who worked with Apple to promote their products in the UK, was the lucky recipient.
“I was sitting in my bedroom writing games on my Apple II when Dad called me down to meet some guests,” Brewer said. “To my amazement, it was Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula. I had the manual with me and only later understood how rare it was for Jobs to sign anything, let alone to write an inscription like this. He got on well with Dad, so I feel the inscription was made with care.”
The Apple II was the company’s first successful product, released in 1977, and is widely recognised as one of the first mass-market computers. In 1979, VisiCalc, the first computer spreadsheet, was built for the Apple II, extending the computer’s popularity to the corporate industry.
“Whereas the Apple I was primarily for hobbyists, with less than 200 units made, the Apple II truly ‘changed the world’ by giving around 6 million homes and businesses their first taste of personal computing. Apple II’s revenues supported Apple’s successful floatation, the biggest tech IPO of the time,” RR Auction said.
The Indianapolis Colts’ owner, Jim Irsay, submitted the winning bid for the manual.
“When we think of the greatest, most innovative minds of the past two centuries, Steve Jobs must certainly be included among them,” Irsay said in a statement provided to the auction house. “Jobs was a truly transformative figure who changed the way in which human beings think, do business and interact on a daily basis.”
Other objects relating to Jobs and Apple were also auctioned at RR Auction, including a signed letter from Jobs, in which he humorously states, “I’m afraid I don’t sign autographs.”
It sold for $479,939.